Bonnie K. Baxter, Ph.D.

Contact Information

Research Bio

Fungal infections are a serious and growing problem among people with compromised immunity, including those undergoing or recovering from chemotherapy and people with HIV/AIDS. There are very few effective anti-fungal drugs, particularly when compared to the arsenal available to treat bacterial infections.

In collaboration with Dr. Damian Krysan, Dr. Melanie Wellington and the members of their laboratories, I am using a novel high-throughput assay developed in the Krysan laboratory to discover new anti-fungal compounds. We then use a variety of biochemical, genetic, and in vivo mouse experiments to characterize the compounds uncovered by the assay: to explore their mechanism of action as well as their potential utility in treating infection, either alone or in combination with other anti-fungal compounds.

Because of its unique characteristics and thus lack of overlap with the human host, we are particularly interested in compounds that affect the fungal cell wall, and we are using genetic approaches to bias our chemical library screening toward this class of compounds. The fungal cell wall is relatively poorly understood, and we expect these compounds to be useful not only in treating fungal infections, but also in helping us understand cell wall structure and function.